Assisi

Some 17-year-old girls would find being compared to a boy a bit disheartening. But Mt. Assisi basketball coach Tom Kassanitz insists it's one of the highest compliments he can pay Jenny Sullivan. "Jenny's a beautiful young lady, but when she's on the court she reminds me of a guy," he said. "Her stamina, intensity and toughness separate her from just about everyone else out there." "I`m glad he explained what he meant by that comment," Sullivan said with a smile. "I owe all the...

Immaculate Conception victorious On a day when many games were canceled because of poor field conditions, Immaculate Conception's girls softball team was able to sneak in a game on Saturday, and the results were good for them. IC trounced Mt. Assisi, 11-1, in six innings. The Knights used a six-run second inning to get things going and pounded out 16 hits in the game. Winning pitcher Jessica Conenna helped her cause with a double, while Lindsey Montoya, Katelyn Falduto and Gabby Curran...

ROME (Reuters) - Usually, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli sings for people, but this time the Franciscan monks in Assisi sang for his supper as they feted the international superstar on his 54th birthday. Bocelli was in Assisi along with U.S. singer Dionne Warwick and other artists to sing at a benefit concert on Saturday night organized by the Fetzer Institute, a non-profit U.S. group whose mission is to promote peace and forgiveness among peoples. When the...

* Rockers, politicians, popes and penitents, all flock to Francis' tomb * Saint who died in 1226 associated with peace, environment, the poor * Monks stopped Tareq Aziz bodyguards from entering convent with machine guns By Philip Pullella ROME, Feb 17 (Reuters) - What do Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger's daughter, Carlos Santana and Patti Smith have in common? It's not only rock and roll: all of them are fans of a saint who lived 800...

Those who knew him as the archbishop of Buenos Aires will not be surprised that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio chose his pontifical name in honor of St. Francis of Assisi. Pope Francis will be moving to the Vatican from a small apartment where he chose to live over the Argentine capital's grand episcopal residence. When named a cardinal, he persuaded hundreds of well-wishers not to accompany him to Rome but instead to donate to the poor what they would have spent for plane tickets. ...

Mount Assisi Academy in Lemont, an all-girls high school that opened in 1951, plans to close its doors at the end of the school year because of declining enrollment and climbing costs. “The economic realities facing everyone, including the Church, have forced us to consider what is possible given the resources we have at our disposal,” Sister Therese Ann Quigney, provincial superior, said in a statement. “Our religious community has substantially subsidized the Academy...

On Nov. 28, a commemorative mass will reopen the Upper Church of the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, which was badly damaged in an earthquake just over two years ago. Extensive restorations have taken place during this time. The bell tower and the tympanum of the left transept were repaired, the main vault was reinforced with a carbon-fiber structure, and the frescoes lining the walls of the Upper Church were cleaned of the dust that settled on them when pieces of the vaulted...

It seemed like a miracle to Leroy Anderson. Anderson said that his 4-year-old puggle - a cross between a pug and a beagle - was usually pretty wild. But on the front lawn of the First Presbyterian Church in Deerfield on Sunday afternoon, Masie was calm and collected among the other animals brought together by their owners to receive a pet blessing. "I came to get her an exorcism," Anderson joked. Sunday marked the first pet blessings in the century-old church's history. "We reflect on being...

The Hinsdale Central volleyball program has enjoyed a dramatic turnaround since Sandy Verdon took over as head coach three years ago. That point was brought home emphatically Wednesday, when the Red Devils rallied to post a 3-15, 15-11, 15-10 victory over visiting Catholic League power Mt. Assisi. "It was our best performance of the season and one of our biggest wins since I`ve been here," said Verdon, who has guided the Red Devils to 7-17 and 13-12 records after taking over a...

One day last September, the Rev. Frank Latzko, pastor of St. Teresa of Avila Roman Catholic Church in Chicago, decided to take a walk and rediscover why he became a priest. His feet carried him from the Lincoln Park neighborhood to France, across the Pyrenees mountains, into Spain and eventually to Italy, where he stood in St. Peter's Square to witness the historic debut of Pope Francis - the first pope to take that name. But Latzko's journey still wasn't complete. Last week, he...

By Lonny Goldsmith. Andy Rabinowitz contributed to this report | January 3, 2001

In its first three games at the Luther South girls basketball tournament, Mt. Assisi allowed only 28 points per game. In the championship game, it held Providence-St. Mel to single digits in each of the first three quarters, cruising to a 49-34 victory. "Our defense was the biggest thing that's improved during the season," Mt. Assisi coach Sheila Reed said. The 42 points given up to Evergreen Park during the tournament were the most Mt. Assisi has allowed all season. Lauren...

At his first news conference, Pope Francis explained his choice of a pontifical name by recalling that, as his election drew near, a cardinal embraced him and said, "Don't forget about the poor. " St. Francis of Assisi was a champion of the down and out, noted Pope Francis, who will be installed Tuesday. The pope said his namesake was "the poor man who wanted a poor church," adding a wishful afterthought: "I'd like a poor church, for the poor. " If such is the spiritual highway Pope Francis intends to...

Chants, temple music and pagan spellbinding intonements echoed around this Roman Catholic shrine Monday as Pope John Paul II and his guests from the world's 12 main religious groups prayed for world peace. Their day of prayer began with a rainbow over hillside Assisi and ended in a unique dinner when the Pope played host to men whom most of his predecessors regarded as heathens. The unprecedented religious gathering, for which the Pope had asked that the guns of war around the world be...

It's been about a week since the white smoke billowed out in unmistakable alabaster plumes, but the thrill of Pope Francis' election lingers still on Chicago's North Shore. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the man now known as Pope Francis, is still something of an unknown commodity. Much remains to be seen about who he is and what he will mean for direction of the Catholic Church. But clergy and lay people in the northern suburban communities say there's much to like already, and that Pope Francis has...

In what coach Carolyn Russell called "the biggest thing that has happened to us," seventh-ranked Mt. Assisi beat fifth-ranked Carl Sandburg 9-15, 15-11, 15-4 in the finals of the Class AA volleyball sectional Thursday night at Sandburg. "We have never advanced this far (supersectionals) before," said the jubilant Mt. Assisi coach, whose Eagles improved to 34-4. "This game was just the most. Whatever happens after tonight is just icing on the cake." Theresa Paciga (4 solo blocks)

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis, giving his clearest indication yet that he wants a more austere Catholic Church, said on Saturday that it should be poor and remember that its mission is to serve the poor. Francis, speaking mostly off-the-cuff and smiling often, made his comments in an audience for journalists where he explained why he chose to take the name Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi, a symbol of peace, austerity and poverty. He called Francis "the man...

What was the message here? I had come to Assisi hoping for something spiritual -- a message, maybe. Something like St. Francis got, 800 years earlier, when his carefree life was changed forever by a signal from God. So what was I supposed to learn as I stood here in this narrow alleyway with my rented car jammed between two walls and obviously going nowhere? I had assumed it would be easy to find my hotel when I drove into the Umbrian city of Assisi, on the trail of St. Francis.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis, giving his clearest indication yet that he wants a more austere Catholic Church, said on Saturday that it should be poor and remember that its mission is to serve the poor. Francis, speaking mostly off-the-cuff and smiling often, made his comments in an audience for journalists where he explained why he chose to take the name Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi, a symbol of peace, austerity and poverty. He called Francis "the man...

Those who knew him as the archbishop of Buenos Aires will not be surprised that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio chose his pontifical name in honor of St. Francis of Assisi. Pope Francis will be moving to the Vatican from a small apartment where he chose to live over the Argentine capital's grand episcopal residence. When named a cardinal, he persuaded hundreds of well-wishers not to accompany him to Rome but instead to donate to the poor what they would have spent for plane tickets. ...